Bac Ha: The final frontier
24th March 2007
As the days counted down on our Vietnamese visa, we decided to splash out what was left of HSBC’s hard earned cash on a couple of organised trips away from Hanoi. We had long earmarked Sapa in the far north of Vietnam as a place we would like to spend a few days trekking in the hills, but as we weighed up our options, we came across a company offering guided mountain bike tours, that would allow us to take in some of the less touristy areas of the border region between Vietnam and China.
We signed up and headed out the following day on a 3 day guided mountain biking tour of Northern Vietnam. The itinery enabled us to leave Hanoi via the overnight train, and despite missing out on a first class sleeper cabin normally sold to tourists (we had left our booking pretty late as usual!) we still managed to sleep for the majority of the 12 hour journey, in our six berth ‘hard sleeper’ cabin. We arrived into Lao Cai station early on Sunday morning and were met by our guide who took us over the road for breakfast. It quickly became clear that we had struck gold, and it was only the two of us booked up on the tour, which we had been told could have included up to six other people.
After breakfast, Tanh (our personal guide!) introduced us to our very own driver, who would be in charge of our very own personal support vehicle that would follow the three of us around as we explored the surounding countryside on our bikes. The support vehicle was a basic 4×4 that had previously seen action during the American War. Our guide and driver were imensley proud of the truck, which they always referred to with as ‘The Russian made support vehicle’. Our ‘Russian made support vehicle’ had ample space for the two of us in the back, and had a boot which just about fitted the three mountian bikes which were to be our main mode of transport for the next 3 days (thankfully they had modern gel cushioned seats to prevent saddle sore!).
The bikes would have to wait however, as we set off in the jeep towards the small hill town of Bac Ha, 50kms away. For much of the trip we followed the Song Hong (Red River), which forms the border between China and Vietnam. The countryside was spectacular, and extremely peaceful having coming from the chaos of Hanoi! We were heading to Bac Ha for the Sunday market, which is the most important event in the weekly calendar of the Montagnard Hill tribe people of the surrounding area. As we aproached the town we passed several groups of people coming down from the hills, walking to Bac Ha with their market goods.
There are approximately 10 different groups of Montagnard people in the area, and each has their own unique, elaborate, colourful traditional clothes which are worn with imense pride to the Sunday market. The most colourful group of all were the Flower H’Mong people and the women from this group wore colourfully embroided floral motifs on their skirts. The nice thing about visiting Bac Ha was that it is a traditional working market, the colourful clothes were worn through tradition, rather than as an extra to attact tourists into the area. Infact, as we passed through the market there were only a couple of other Western faces around, and it was us who were clearly viewed as aliens (no doubt with very boring dress sense) by the friendly locals as they went about their business.
The market itself was crazy! With very few stalls aimed at tourists, the goods being brought and sold were as diverse as Water Buffalo, Horse, Pigs, Dogs and Chickens (for working / eating or both) to huge piles of tabbaco, potent Rice wine and pouches of Opium (don’t worry Mum, we didn’t indulge!). We spent a couple of hours wandering around the market in amazement, the colours and atmosphere were like nothing we had come across in the countless markets we have visited during the last year.
After lunch, we jumped on the bikes and headed out for an afternoon cycle in the hills, a 20km round trip to Heavens gate, a mountain pass approx 1000m above sea level. The climate was perfect for cycling, refreshingly cool and the air was clear of the pollution that is a problem in most of the cities we have visited in South East Asia. We passed through some gorgeous countryside, where those who weren’t at the market were working in the fields, planting or harvesting various crops (tea, coffee, rice, various nuts etc) by hand or with the aide of Ox drawn plough (not a tractor in sight!).
Our guide took us to the house of a local Flower H’Mong family, who genorously invited us in, and we spent an hour or so chatting with the aide of our guide. When we asked the woman where her husband was she told us that he should have been back a couple of hours ago, but was probably getting drunk down at the market with his mates! It’s nice to know that no matter where you are in the world, there is a constant of an angry Women waiting for you when you return from having a few bevvies with your pals! On the way back down to Bac Ha, we stopped in to visit the former H’Mong Kings house, the locals have long since converted the former coutyard into a Badmington court, which provided the entertainment as we strolled around the abandoned palace. On the final leg back into town we had to dodge several men stumbling home along the road after an afternoon on the rice wine down at the market!
Next day we were given a lift high up into the mountains from where we jumped back on our bikes and spent the morning cruising back down the 20kms or so to town. Again, the scenery was spectacular, and being well and truly off the beaten track, nearly everyone we passed stood in amazement at the sight of these two huge westerners on mountain bikes. Once the shock had worn off the locals seemed genuinely excited to see us and we would always exchange an attempt to say hello to each other, and often stop to play around with our camera, which provided endless entertainment! In the afternoon we cruised another 30kms (thankfully all downhill) to a small isolated village which is where we were to stay the night with a local family of Tay people. The house in which we were staying was the only one in the village with electricity, and when we arrived, pretty much everyone from the village was huddled into the front room of the house to watch a Chinese martial arts soap opera. There was much drinking (green tea) and smoking going on, and everyone was completly absorbed in the plot of the soap. After the show finished, the electricity was turned off again, and all the guests filed out of the house no doubt to return for tomorrows episode!
After that we took a boat trip with our hosts down the river to ‘Fairy Cave’, where the village people (not of YMCA fame) had hidden and lived during the brief war with China in 1979. The scenery was pretty nice, but given it was dry season, our boat kept running aground in the river, which was literally only ankle deep in places. We often had to jump out and push the boat back to deeper water, a task which wasn’t difficult, but was slightly un-nerving given we kept seeing Viper Snakes a couple of meters long cruising around in the water! It only seemed to be us who were running aground however, as other boats passed by with no problems. Either the guy driving our boat didn’t know what he was doing, or whatever it was he had been smoking earlier on in the afternoon was seriously effecting his judgement! When we got back to the house, I went down to the local stream to take a bath (when in Rome!), whilst Charlotte looked on, before settling down for dinner. After dinner we sat around for a while drinking rice wine with the family. Rice wine is grim stuff, but not wanting to offend our hosts Charlotte declined after the first shot leaving me to tuck away a good few shots of the paint stripper strengh brew! As the sun went down, and having used all the available electricity watching the TV earlier, it was off to bed as it was too dark to do anything else. It was about 6pm, rock and roll!
On our final day, we were driven to Coc Ly to visit a smaller scale version of the Bac Ha market. After this we were back on the bikes for the 40km journey back to Lao Cai, from where we were to get the night train back to Hanoi that evening. During the afternoon cycling we were right up against the border with China. I was really tempted to wade across the red river to the other side to set foot in China, but after our guide told us this could land me in jail for a couple of months, I decided it was probably best not to! We did not get to cross the border, so had to be content that it was as close as we will get to China on this trip! When we arrived back into Lao Cai, we had a couple of hours to kill before our train left for the capital, thankfully our guide had arranged for us to have use of a room in a guesthouse, so we could take a much needed shower!
As we boarded the first class cabin of the sleeper train back to Hanoi, we were left to reflect on a great 3 days of cycling in the border region, which gave us the opportunity to take in some of the most spectacular scenery of our entire trip to date. The market at Bac Ha and the colourful Flower H’Mong people were also a great experience, although probably best avoided by dog lovers!
Tags: Vietnam
Chris and Charl
Leave a Reply